Vayeishev: The Soul Connection Between Chacham Yosef Chaim ; The Ben Ish Chai & Yosef Hatzadik

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com okay good evening everyone BR welcome tonight's Shar I'm pasv so a very interesting subject tonight if this is your first time at the Shar tonight's share does not reflect the uh typical way typical subjects of the sh it's definitely uh very outdare topic and uh we're eventually going to come back to the uh par but we begin with a passage in the was written by the the's name was of Baghdad ofhd he's called why is the good one and he was the preeminent scholar in Iraq in Baghdad for 7 3 years from the year 1835 to 1909 and he did not hold an official position he was not in Iraq the head the chief Rabbi was called Kashi he was not officially the Kashi he was not officially rashash or a r of a sh he happened to have been independently wealthy which is a very um a very large part of why he yielded so much influence and that is he did not have to come on to anybody he did not he was not relying on a position he was not reliant on a job he was not reliant on anybody for money and therefore his word carried a lot of weight and one of his Classics for is the he tells the following story now the was not only a great and not only a great and of course his famous he wrote the he wrote he wrote M he wrote ad he wrote many many um I have a set at home of about seven different s that the composed for different days of the year the AR's yard site and various other occasions and the was also a great Storyteller and many of his many of his are couched in M that seems that he made them up but let's begin with one particular incident and episode that he relates he starts off on the and he's bothered by the question is repeti repetitious it's Superfluous there's a lot ofos in the so here's the story he says there was a a great calist and the government had a pretext against him and they had trumped up charges against him and they put him in jail so here it is a great Rabbi a great scholar a great cabalist who's put in jail on trumped up charges and they did not put him in the regular prison cell but they basically put him what's called solitary confinement nobody was allowed to talk to him nobody was allowed to go near him and he was in a very tight uh quarantine he was a very tight uh seller and he remained there for 30 days after 30 days was over the prison Warden knocks on the door he says Rabbi you've been acquitted you're free you could leave and he went home on day number 31 so this great Rabbi goes home and he's thinking to himself the night of the 32nd why did God do this to me now interestingly miraculously while he's in his prison cell he has unusual of he has a lot of peace of mind and he's sitting there without any learning cabala day and night and not only is he learning cabala he's being and in the prison cell this Rabbi was able to compose an enire saer of cabala miraculously he had the calmness and the peace of mind and the clarity of thought to be able to learn for 30 consecutive days not uninterrupted so he gets back home and the night of the 32nd he's tossing and turning in bed why did God do this to me yes granted spiritually was a very good situation nobody interfered with me I had Clarity of thought I had Clarity of Mind nobody bothered me I was in a I had a r of kadus but physically it was very painful emotionally was very painful why would God do this to me if he wanted me to write AER onab I could have done it in my living room on the couch in Comfort why did this happen to me so this Rabbi fell asleep and what happened obviously he had a dream and in the dream he sees an old sage a beautiful looking Sage a majestic looking Sage either he was from the Ben or he was an angel and he go this Rabbi in the dream comes over to the the sage and he says you know something's bothering me something's troubling me I can't get it off my chest so this the sage says speak speak your peace so this cabalist says please explain to me why did have it that I need to be incarcerated for 30 days so the sage says what do you mean why do you need to be incarcerated turn around and this cabalist turns around and he sees three rows of children behind him all walking one after the other after the other they all look identical and they all look like the sage that this cabalist is speaking to and they were all beautiful children they're all handsome children and the sage says it's because of these children that you had to be incarcerated and the cabalist said say what and he said that's right these children are gulim and they were reincarnated as the stones of your prison cell as we know that it is possible to come back in a gilgal as a human being you could come back back as a gole as an animal you come back as a plant or you could come back as a rock now it's best to avoid coming back as a rock um we learned that in the one of the cavas to have is that I'm not a rock because I be a rock it would be a long time until I get out of the mat fine so the sage told this m you should know that these three rows of children are all from the same sh sh of your and they were trapped in the stone surrounding your prison cell so and you're the only one who is able to redeem and to free them so therefore God made sure and he orchestrated that you should be in this prison and you should have 30 days of uninterrupted learning of K cabala because only your learning of cabala is able to free and release the souls that were n galel and the stones of your prison cell if you would have been at home you would have been too far away from these children if you would have been learning other material you would not have been able to redeem these children so God orchestrated you were in solitary confinement if if people had been able to speak to you it would have taken you 40 days 50 days 60 days God wanted you out of there as soon as possible these children have been awaiting your arrival for a very very long time recognize the sage says that God put you here for your benefit because all of these children that you redeemed are accredited to you they are now considered like your children and the sage told this cabalist that you should know until you got here you don't even want to know what the were doing in that prison cell if you want to know exactly you could look over here it says but I'm afraid I don't know who's listening out there so I can't mention exactly what the Gentiles were doing but if you need greater detail you could see for yourself okay Israel and no I'm just picking on you because we spoke before the sh so and this say this cabalist rejoiced greatly over this understanding over this insight and he was able to publish a safe of Caba based on what he learned and and revealed and was mades in the prison cell says the holy benai this m in this story teaches us a very important lesson you ever wonder sometimes in life you have to go to places you have to go to fire Dar of places you have to go to Crazy places right for you know um we had a spend today in the DMV you know I don't know how this happens someone my family is applying for a permit I'm not sure how that's happening exactly right so how long does it take to get a permit in New York it's only a 6-hour process you go there at 9:30 and you just wait and wait and wait if you want to know what the United States of America will look like if Bernie Sanders is elected go to the DMV okay and that that's you know Mother Russia basically if you want to know why does God make somebody go to certain places why do I have to spend time in certain places what am I doing there why did this happen to me here it is it's completely a fabricated accusation against this Mak the answer is says always orchestrates you you are where you need to be sometimes you have to go to places you have to make a br you have to learn you have to hear a good V you have to do a Mitzvah in that place you don't know who you're talking to you don't know who's in the table you don't know who the Rocks you're stepping on you don't know who are in the molecules of oxygen sometimes you have to go somewhere make a br just to free some that's n there therefore if every act every breath every footstep every place that we go isav so that we could accomplish something for ourselves certainly the Ben says that when God told Abraham leave Canan leave and go to Kanan it was certainly for Abraham's benefit it was certainly something Abraham needed to accomplish to gather in various Nas that have been dispersed all throughout the world and this is a a very well-known Concept in cabala that Thea writes about extensively writes about it in many many places the concept of gathering in Sparks of kadus which is not the subject of tonight's share all we know so far is that told the story as far as we're concerned it's a legend it never happened it's a m about a great makal who was put in jail in solitary confinement who wrote a safer of cabala but we would say this whole story is just an invented Parable to to bring out a certain point okay put that story in your back pocket let's come to the life of the benai as we mentioned the benai did not hold an official position was not the Kashi was not the chief Rabbi of Baghdad was not a rashash was not the rabbi of the SCH but he was the um preeminent godar of jury which included all of Iraq which included India which included Singapore which included the whole Faris okay and the as we mentioned Benes was independently wealthy first of all his wife took care of the finances his wife took care of um of his home his wife took care of all of the Affairs of the household but aside from that and that is the Benes had four brothers and actually we have over here the uh official the new official biography on the Benes called guess what Benes and it was uh collected and overseen by rakov hul one of the leading mum today it's a beautiful coffee table Edition a very expensive Edition thank Galia Schwarz for getting me both in English and in Hebrew and actually so there are some things in the English that are not in the Hebrew and I have a a friend who also tried to get me uh the these two volumes they're amazing volumes actually I quoted them many times already and in the official now interestingly many years ago ROV H wrote a biography about the Benes now just as an aside there is a very two disparate mahim in theic World in do you follow the Aral and the cabalistic approach which was sort of the established way of the benai and the Benes Kai's approach was accepted in many many if not most communities or the approach of RF RF holds that them have to follow the not the cabalistic approach and and would go with the and the would say that if the the would would have known what the would have said the would have been and the would say we follow the those are the two basically streams of uh of in theic world today so the Benes theak H is a very big proponent of elevating the Benes to the highest pedestal because their and in in in way of life is based on the Ben now interestingly is a direct descendant of the leaders of Iraqi jury from his mother's side he's a direct descendant of I believe rissen this was no not okay now had four brothers their brothers names were rabim R and R and they were businessmen they were businessmen and the Ben was the he was the oldest and he was the greatest and they wanted to support him so the deal was they worked and they did business overseas and they did a lot of business they had a tremendous bu business in India okay they had all kinds of stuff going on in India they had diamonds they had gold they had silver they had all kind spices merchandise they had a big business going on in India and out of respect to their great brother who has world famous they began to sign everything in the business under his name okay that's the introduction to the story right so you could just imagine uh this does not necessarily spell promising news for the benai now they're wildly successful extremely wealthy Benes first of all was now extremely wealthy and most importantly his major expenses were now all on the house what were the Ben's major expenses he was probably the greatest publisher of all time he published over 100 now publishing is extremely expensive Ben had nothing to worry about everything was written off the family business so he had nothing to worry about about his personal finances his publishing was on the house and moreover the was many many many through the the income of the business okay one of the well-known Dar in Baghdad was known by the name of rabes Ezra Shaya who maintained theori he maintained a children's school he taught and he was a great Bal Daran he would Dar every shabas for two hours and he was very popular dar in Baghdad he never accepted a rabanos because he was very modest he was very humble but um he also recorded some of the history of the Benes so here's what happened wherever the brothers go all around the world they're signing the checks who's nobody knows nobody knows who Y is finally they got into thatb um over here in the English version they were millions of dollars in debt so they asked their creditors to basically hold your horses do us a favor we're we're going to sell our our real estate and we're going to pay back but the the credit said no you got to pay up immediately they said if we pay up immediately we're not going to get a good price for our land no nothing doing the government got involved all four brothers were incarcerated from the 9th day of schad 1882 until the 25th of Adar 1883 I believe they were imprisoned in India but what's incredible is when the government got to the bottom of the story and they looked at all the documents and They confiscated the record books and when the government looks in the books all they saw was every single G was under whose name y so it seems like the government of India came and took the benai and imprisoned the the Benes went to jail and for how long did the Benes go to jail for 30 days and writes that in jail the Ben wrote a saer and what what kind of safer was it a safer of cabala and what's the name of the safer the same name of the safer as the Ben says that that M wrote in jail which is a safer m so says let me just tell you a tradition that I have that when gives a about a guy who went to jail for 30 days and wrote a sa of Caba and released theas of children in the stones of the prison cell my tradition is this was not a mall this is autobiograph biographical information that the Ben was writing about himself as he usually does that when he says he's talking about himself so amazingly the benai sat in jail for days now why didn't the benai write in the mus that was me I mean I mean probably for good reason you know it probably does not look good on the when I was a kid I used to have my grandmother gave me gum pictures so on the front you had the picture it's like a baseball card and on the back you have information so I have not found on the statistics of any of the you know their jail their jail time probably doesn't look good but more importantly the now writes in a footnote that this was not accurate because the saer that he wrote in jail was not the saer M he just made up a name m as if you know the name of the saer wrote in jail is let me out of jail but that's not the real name because he wouldn't write the real name because he didn't want to give up give up his cover and why didn't he want to give up his cover so theorizes he didn't want to embarrass his brothers for getting him into this mess okay so the bottom line is the Benes did jail time what we're going to come to soon what the benai did when he got out of jail which is even more shocking okay but as of now the benai spent 30 days in jail fine now why did he spend 30 days in jail how do we understand this so okay he had had to be there he had to release souls in the stones and he had be uh be M different children in one of the official biographies of the Ben if you look at number five it's called he brings down that when the was seven years old and you're probably wondering to yourself what in the world is Rabbi talking about it'sa it's it's an interesting story but nothing to do with the price of tea in Baghdad right but listen listen to this when he was 7 years old he was playing with his sister in this in the basement and of course they got into a little bit of a squabble and the sister pushes him into the I don't know we we'll put it in modern terms in Five Towns the sun pump or something in the you know the into the basically the pit into a well he fell into the well he's drowning he's on the verge of EX fixating they jump in they save his life they resuscitate him and they pull y out of the pit they pulled out of the pit and they saved his life well in the safer which is one of the ofi and we're going to get toimi momentarily he says there are striking parallels between the life of and the life of the namely just like Y in jail he was very productive he was interpreting dreams he was bringing the to the world so to the benai wrote an entire compilation while in jail furthermore just like when y was in jail he found favor in the eyes of the warden and the eyes of all the people there the Ben when he was in jail you know usually when someone goes to jail and usually I not that I uh know exactly but that you know this is what they say you you go into the jail and all the bullies come right and they come out with their knives and they start up with you and they harass you and they antagonize you at the very least and it's a it's a dangerous place and the benai walks in now benai one of the great Miracles that always happened to him is that I don't know when I speak on shabas morning I'm wearing a Talis so I remember uh the first thing I made sure is I get a nonslip Talis right because you you speak the Talis goes flying even with a non-slip Talis the Talis doesn't stay on the Benes had his Talus immaculately folded on his shoulders it never moved it never budged it never wavered and he walks into jail wearing probably two pairs of sillin and a Talis and everyone was they he everyone was in awe of him after all if you look at his picture it's a pretty uh it's an it looks like an eminent personality you can look at it later we have all kinds of pictures of the Benes and almost all the Jews that lived in Baghdad somewhere or another are in this book somewhere okay so if if you have family in Baghdad they're in here you know okay be it as it may the Benes also found favor in the eyes of the warden found favor in the eyes of the prisoners just like y was thrown into a pit the Ben fell into a pit when he was younger just like y was very handsome the benai was a very strikingly uh handsome individual okay so that's what we got so far so comes the year 18 1909 the Benes passes away now I'll tell you something interesting where is the benai buried in Baghdad no he's not he has a cover in Bagdad I was at his so I'm not going to say I was at his cover in Baghdad but in this book we have a picture of his cover in uh in Baghdad but reender is right reender is right because I was also in harim and I was at his Kev two times and it was one of the most elevating experiences to be at the C of the Benes so somebody even asked me how did Torah anytime get put this beautiful backdrop behind the c Ben of the Temple mount with the blue sky how did they do that I said R you don't realize harim is right in back of the Temple Mount this is not uh this is not production here this is the way it looks so the has two now usually somebody only needs one k you know people have a house in the five towns and in Florida but that's when you're alive you need two places you most most people don't need tar you know the summer Cav the winter Cav what what's with the tuar so there's a great degree of mystery as to where the Ben is buried if you want to know more about it Torah anytime.com we have a couple of sh on the subject the bottom line is even though nobody saw him be buried in but many M had dreams that he was buried in opinion of that he is in fact buried on har I nobody saw it you know that's what they say so bear in mind the Ben is two fine Ben died in the year 1909 there was a great sage in Baghdad his name was Rim aasi okay Rim aasi was a great mob from the time of his youth not not not related to Andre's okay and he most of his life he hid he hid uh himself he didn't want to benefit from the C of toyra and towards the end of his life especially after the he sort of came out into the open and he wrote a number of he wrote the which is a commentary of he wrote he wrote and he was considered the in the year now another interesting thing is he had a stutter he did not speak clearly but that was until a certain point now he was also the rebi of rabud fataya fataya was one of the great is also buried on he uh we want we want spoke about fine so at the of the Ben or or at some one of his majori gets up to speak and he says you know to be at the L of a sadic or Adam godal is one of the most important events to be at in your entire existence why because if you're at Thea and and you show to a great a great that could be the greatest of your whole life because the AR writes that the gar tells us that anyone who is at the of re imagine you could have a guy who's an O the guy is M Russ and he went to re and he's you know the highest level of the heavens writes is the highest highest M well says if anyone who went to re anyone who is at the of the is said how do I know that says let me reveal to you a certain secret I looked at the of the Ben and I detected that he's at from the same root of the Nish of rebi re and the were the same source and what source is that is one of the T and what source is the source the source of is therefore just like so now what's fromi saying that the the was similar to rebi and they were both rooted in now we know y knew all the languages he knew all the disciplines he know all the likewise the was well versed in all branches of knowledge all branches of of wisdom and all disciplines because the the the manifestation the SPH of is the foundation of all the SP all the SP flow into therefore the like the was knowledgeable in all areas and therefore just like the gamar says that anyone who was at Reb's L is M anyone who attended the is the one the real one the one that happened in Baghdad now but there were a lot of people who weren't able to attend because he was buried at midnight which is probably what contributed to the mystery of where he was actually buried he was buried at midnight and what nobody saw it why he buried midnight I guess okay we're going to see in a moment he because he didn't die in Baghdad so he was buried at midnight and many people thought that they heard that the body was being brought they figured he'd be buried the next day so many people was too hard for them to get up at midnight many of them thought he was buried the next day and afterwards they were terribly B that they missed the sayi anyone who wished they could been at the L and wasn't also will go straight to why because just like the says there was a certain launderer who when he heard we know that Bas went out at the L of rebi that says anyone who was at the burial of rebi go straight to and there's a certain launderer he had a dry cleaning and he missed he missed the Rea he said I can't believe it I blew my whole life because I wasn't at the levas he went up to the roof he jumped off the roof he committed suicide and then the bascle climbed out called out the launderer is also going TOA so we learned from there that anyone who was B that they weren't at Reb Z went to therefore anyone who wished they could have been at the L of the also goes to but those guys that when the Kashi said the Ben is being buried they said nah you know we'll watch it on Torah anytime tomorrow those people lost they blew their whole life they blew it they could have been they're alive and they weren't there alive they will not get at least for that now saysi since I'm revealing to you that the Benes came from the sh of rebi now we understand why a mystery of the death of the Benes now the Ben in the end of his life was not well and he went to pray in the north of Iraq I'm calling to go here but even I won't go there in the north of Iraq you have an amazing Cav ski and I was blown away there are amazing pictures in here of the of the building and the whole uh Bion around the C ofes not only isesco buried there Yeshua K was buried there Y is buried there Ezra is buried there I is buried there in B they have pictures of this it's amazing no they just what's the name of the septu there's a there's a name for the building over the over the grave it's what no it's starts with an S sep okay I'll show you over here um and the benai went to a certain area called Kal I believe it is in present day Iran and he died there and they took him two days and they returned him to Baghdad and supposedly he's buried in Baghdad why did why did the Ben have to go and die in one place and then be buried in another place saysi I'll tell you why cuz the exact same thing happened to rebi because rebi at the end of his life where did rebi live Reb's lived in Bim but he wasn't well in the end of his life so he went to a place of pleasant air where did he go he went to a high clim a high land uh he went to T he died in SEI he was brought back to Bear to be buried in Bim so just like rebi was died in died in and was brought to the died in and he was buried in bdad now if I could add somebody said you're just going to tell over a story you don't have any Kim I said you know you could say Kim on it's very hard to say you know if you know anything about it but I tell you one interesting because when I was in Yesa in I was I was 19 and a half years old and like 3:00 in the morning we did a shabus in the north we're driving back and we stopped off at the Kev of rubbi in C and then last year I went to is and I I took people to the Cav of rebi in B said well wait a second how did rebi get from and then I read Reb has two reab has two Kum one of them is probably not real the one in is not real the one that I went to when I was a b now I remember when I went to Reb's k a b which is not his k i remember daving I don't think I ever ding like that in my life so it was a little bit deflating when I learned that he's not there you know but uh and it's deflating in many ways but but it turns out the rebi has two him so it's interesting if the benai is the GLE of rebi just like rebi has two graves Benes has two graves in bad and on as saysi that why was it that we know the Ben di died in kala was brought to Baghdad because rebi died in was brought to Bim but why was re why did rebi have to die in one place and be buried somewhere else and the answer is you have to look back at the root who's the root of rebi y y died in MIT and he's buried in so therefore it always goes back to the root since y died in mited re died in brought to died in Baghdad and he's brought to or he died in excuse me died in Kal and he's brought to Baghdad fine that's the story now thisi what I haven't been there no and here I'll tell you another thing just like I haven't been to the C of Ben bdad I haven't been to y's cover in there you go why midnight probably they he's coming from two days away and that's when they got back so they buried him you know okay now we just mentioned that rimi couldn't speak and here he is he just gave a longa writes that from the moment the was his stutter was cured his stutter was cured okay now here let's let's go to the mother let's talk about the mother of the benai for a moment the mother of the Ben she's m what's the expression she has five kids in jail all her four businessman kids are in jail her son the benai is in jail and the mother died in great aggravation on Z of 1882 now Benes comes back Benes has no money he's an un now I'm G tell you something very interesting the opened up the door of his home and he did not leave his home for seven years he did not give Shear for seven years he did not communicate with anyone for seven years he did not talk for seven years he did not eat for seven years he had no interaction with anyone for seven years nobody knows what the Ben is was doing from the day he got out of jail until 7 years later here the godar went completely Qui buy it for seven years he didn't talk he didn't eat he didn't give she he didn't give he didn't write he didn't write letters now the benai wrote um holiday cards to people every single year he wrote cards we have all of his cards that he sent all over the world we have not one letter of the tens of thousands of documents that are now unearth from the Ben by the way um in Saddam Hussein's complex I spoke about this when the American Army invaded Iraq in the Gulf War um Saddam Hussein's complex was flooded and uh they brought an experts Saddam Hussein collected all the manuscripts of antiquity and uh the American Army put away a whole chest of writing that they didn't think was uh they they didn't think it was Jewish writing because it looked Arabic turned out after years and years and years they reopened it and it was an entire chest of more so courtesy of Saddam Hussein over the last couple years many many many SP have been pred of documents sitting in Saddam Hussein's compound but we don't have one one word that he wrote for seven years what was the Benes doing for seven years the only suggestion that is given is he was doing something called Ti hak now what's tiak in the English book on page 164 it's says that sometime during the younger years observed the rectification known as repentance of the K which is carried out by a few rare Pious individuals in every generation this tick consists of fasting from dawn to Nightfall for six years straight secluding oneself in Torah in prayer to weaken the evil Incarnation without leaving one's home one cannot eat eat meat eat anything of a living Source drink wine you want only fast learn Torah fight sleep and eat just enough bread to sustain oneself only thing one could eat is bread vegetables and herbs for 40 days it's a deadly process and after that you'll be able to continue for six years okay don't try this at home or anywhere else okay it is suggested that the benai conducted This Ti now in the seventh year he received word that his rebi and wife's Abdullah died now abdah was a whole if you want to know about him there's a share about him I have a share on him ABD he is now buried in the entrance of the the C of Yeshua K and died the Ben came out of his house he was m and then he went back to giving Shar and teaching like nothing ever happened until recently we didn't know any of this this is recent uh recently discovered information okay comes out of jail he's now an one while once he was a great as we said while once all of his farm were on the family business and he was he now had no income had no source of livelihood was not able to even FR others and his big problem is how's he going to publish this far him so we have very interesting letters here the benai even in his great poverty never asked anybody for a penny would not take a penny from anybody but we have two letters where he writes that even though his personal dtit um his his state of destitution was very acute nevertheless what bothered him the most was the fact that he was not able to publish his for and particularly we have a letter over here that he wrote to the chief Rabbi of France not to be confused with okay and that the Benes said I have one possession and I had is I have a SAA the sa was written in the in approximately the year 1700 a tiny SAA written on P paper as thin as an onion peel it's a very valuable sa forra it cannot be read publicly it's too fragile but it could be used to dance on and the says because I have no money to publish my I am going to sell it to baroness I'm going to give it as a gift to baroness W Rothchild in exchange she's going to give me money so you say but how am I allow to say for I'm going to use that money to publish I'm not going to charge for the publication of this farm and in that sense I'm not it's not considered being n from so amazingly you see that the Ben started off life very wealthy a great um a very generous man others and Ne he he was uh sat in jail for 30 days on trumped up charges he was released he was secluded then in solitary confinement for seven years and after that he came out one more connection to par and the yeah there seems to be some connection between the two of them y was there for what 22 years oh in jail um what got 1 years years number of years YF was there for a little while look not everything you know is exactly uh okay one last thing it's it says that y spoke about the brothers what did y say about the brothers he said that the brothers ate the Flesh of a living being really could that have been could could the brothers really have eaten is even did the brothers really consume Abra and a so the IM learns a fantastic shot we know that and the says how do we know the righteous are considered alive even when they're dead the ques what do we call aad what's is aad says Y is so what is y abely considered Y is considered is now the brothers were they learning from thead were they gaining from thead were they asking advice and learning from no they were from the says when said the brothers a his was they from me because I am a Ben now I don't think the IM meant that Y and the Ben Shar the same soul but based on what we're learning there seems to have been some kind of mystical connection between and the Ben okay these are some of the of the and the in the running of the world and we learn from here that there's more than me you see people you see events things happen to us we don't know exactly what the are but the the says to us wherever I tell you to go it's for you it's for your benefit it's for your to and it's for your ultimate I say have a great night you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by Torah anytime.com